Pip Silt-Walker is a small, soft-spoken forest gnome with warm earth-toned skin, gentle amber eyes, and faint worry lines etched beneath them like tiny dried riverbeds. His unkempt brown hair escapes in damp curls from beneath a practical felt cap, whose brim has been repaired with green thread and a fishhook. He moves with a careful, rolling gait that seems slow until the ground becomes treacherous, at which point he glides over roots, rubble, and slick clay with startling confidence. His hands are broad-knuckled and permanently dark beneath the nails from years of handling wet soil. He leaves an impression of harmless domesticity, like a kindly groundskeeper, but his gaze constantly measures distances, shadows, and the load-bearing strength of every ceiling. The unexpected contradiction is his smile, which is bright, almost boyish, even when he is discussing cave-ins, corpses, or the names of people he failed.